More than 350 Greenlandic Indigenous women and girls, including some 12 years old and younger, were forcibly given contraception by Danish health authorities in cases that date back to the 1960s, according to an independent report released Tuesday. The Inuit victims, many of them teenagers, were either fitted with intrauterine contraceptive devices, known as IUDs or coils, or given a hormonal birth control injection. They were not told details about the procedure, or did not give their consent.
Danish authorities last year said as many as 4,500 women and girls – reportedly half of the fertile women in Greenland at the time – received IUDs between the 1960s and mid-1970s. The forced contraception of Indigenous women and girls was part of centuries of Danish policies that dehumanized Greenlanders and their families. The policies included the removal of young Inuit children from their parents to be given to Danish foster families for reeducation and controversial parental competency tests that resulted in the forced separation of Greenlandic families.
